April 2010

Japanese Youth Conduct Arms Down! Campaign in Hiroshima

The Youth Committee of the Japanese Committee of the World Conference of Religions for Peace played an active role in promoting the Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security in Hiroshima on April 10.

Some 120 religious youths from member organizations of Religions for Peace Japan took part, including Rev. Doken Yasaka, director of the steering committee of the campaign in Japan as well as deputy director of the youth committee. Rissho Kosei-kai's participants included Rev. Koichi Matsumoto, director of the Youth Department and of the youth committee of Religions for Peace Japan; Mr. Keiichiro Fujita, director of Rissho Kosei-kai's executive committee for the campaign; and members of the Chugoku area of western Japan.

In Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, the opening ceremony was held at the International Conference Center Hiroshima. Afterward the participants moved to the Memorial Cenotaph for atomic bomb victims and prayed for peace.

They then welcomed Hiroshima's mayor, Dr. Tadatoshi Akiba, in front of the A-Bomb Dome and he signed a disarmament petition. After that, they divided into four groups and moved to the city center to promote the campaign with banners and posters among passers-by and tourists, explained its significance, and invited people to sign disarmament petitions.

The campaign was launched in December by the Global Youth Network of Religions for Peace, which was born at the World Youth Assembly during the eighth world assembly of Religions for Peace in Hiroshima in 2006. The campaign calls on every nation to divert at least 10 percent of its military expenditures to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

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